Workshop on Dynamics and Control, August 19-21, 2002, Los Angles, California

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

The rapid development of technology and its by-products require increased precision in mathematical modeling of the relevant phenomena to make the models more realistic and more readily applicable. This has required some basic changes in the direction of research in many fundamental areas. The scientists concerned have been involved for some years now in promoting the use of advanced methods in Analytical Dynamics and Control, and in the Control of Complex Nonlinear Systems. The workshop will involve experts both in the purely dynamical aspects of such systems so that improved models with more realistic predictions can be generated and experts in Lyapunov formalisms for handling bounded uncertainties in system parameters so that control actions can be made in the face of uncertainties. A range of application areas is also intended to be broached, so that a crossover of information between various disciplines that have the same types of fundamental problems can be effected. Past experience has shown that such crossover of information has led to new ideas and new collaborative research projects among attendees of the workshop. Eleven workshops have been held to date between 1986 and 2000. The first five were held in the US at the University of Southern California, and they helped to get together scientists and engineers mainly from the US and the Pacific Rim, with occasional participation from scientists from other countries. In an effort to initiate a technical exchange between US and West European scientists and engineers who are working in this area, the next two workshops were held in Vienna (Austria) and Ulm (Germany). The East European scientific community was drawn into the following workshop in Sopron (Hungary), which was co-sponsored by NSF and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The 1997 workshop was held in Rio de Janeiro and was sponsored by the Brazilian Ministry of Science. This workshop indicated that there were numerous scientists working in the area of Dynamical systems and Control in South America. The tenth workshop was held in Lambrecht (Germany) and was co-sponsored by the Volkswagen Corporation and the National Science Foundation. The large community of scientists and engineers working in South America caused the International Organizing Committee to select Brazil yet another time, and the 11th workshop was held in Brazil in 2000. It has been decided by the International Organizing Committee to have the next workshop in the US, in Los Angeles, bringing the venue after an entire decade back to the location from which the workshops initiated. The workshop will be held at the University of Southern California. One of the main thrusts of this particular workshop is to focus more on bringing junior faculty (especially women-faculty) and graduate students, so that they can have a greater chance of increased exposure to the more established community in the area of dynamics and control, and so that they can have an opportunity to interact with their counterparts who are working outside the US. These workshops, each of whose proceedings have been published either as special journal issues or as books, have led to the realization that there are today a large number of scientists who are working in South America, the former USSR, as well as both West and East European countries like Germany, France, Russia and the Ukraine, in similar areas of dynamics and control. In particular the last three meetings have clearly pointed out the need for increased interaction between scientists from Europe, South America, and the former USSR. There appears to be a substantial body of information gathered in these countries that is yet unknown to US scientists and engineers. An exchange of information in this important area with our colleagues in these countries will be beneficial to the engineering and scientific community here in the US. These workshops have led, in the past, to collaborative research projects, not only among the US attendees but also between investigators from the US and those from different countries; some of these joint research projects have been funded by NSF. We therefore expect, as before, that the forthcoming workshop will open up new avenues for collaborative research and sustained long-term cooperation among scientists and engineers through joint research projects. This, we hope, will be more so true for this particular workshop, since its focus will be more on junior faculty who may be more active and enterprising.